Mario Aguilar

The Dutch design firms Studio Roosegaarde and Hejmans Infrastructure just came up with a brilliant prototype for a "Smart Highway" that uses interactive lighting that adapts to driving conditions to make the roads safer. Enough with crap infotainment systems inside cars that distract us from driving with Twitter and dinner reservations—let's light up the roads like a night club until no one crashes again.

In addition to obvious additions like glow-in-the-dark lines that charge during the day with sunlight, the Smart Highway would feature innovations like dynamic paint that communicates information about the road you're driving on. For example, wouldn't it be nice to know when you're about to drive over a patch of ice?

And though this mostly a concept, it's not all pie in the sky. According to Studio Roosegaarde, the "first meters" of Smart Highway will be built in the Netherlands. How many meters? We're guessing not very many because, from the looks of it, the future of driving will be expensive. [Studio Roosegaarde via Design Boom]